The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released stats on the number of alcohol-induced deaths in 2020, and the results are pretty shocking.

Even by a conservative measure that only includes deaths directly caused by alcohol (e.g., alcohol poisoning, liver or pancreas failure, or alcohol withdrawal), alcohol-induced deaths rose 26% year over year in 2020.

That’s the highest increase in 40 years, per the Guardian.

It’s not hard to understand why. So many of us experienced the stress of the pandemic first as an existential threat and then as a severe disruption to our everyday lives. It lost many people their jobs and forced others to quit working to care for children who couldn’t attend classes. It hurt children’s social development and kept famiiles apart for a long time. Although it’s impossible to know for sure, we imagine many people started to drink more as a faulty means of coping.

Excessive drinking is one of the most common causes of death among young adults. A recent study of all US deaths from 2015-2019 found 1 in 5 were caused by alcohol.

It’s not just people drinking too much on one night and dying in a car crash or dying of acute intoxication, either. Almost 60% of alcohol-caused deaths studied were caused by diseases resulting from drinking too much over time.

This means it’s well worth it to get into healthier drinking habits for the long term.

If you’re working to cut back or quit drinking, join us today. Drinker’s Helper is an app that provides motivational exercises, drink tracking and insights into why you drink, and a personalized support group of your peers to help you make needed changes. We believe you can do it!